Robert Lee was 51 when he was killed by gunfire inside Lee’s Cathay Terrace, the family-run Chinese restaurant on Post Road in Warwick, Rhode Island, on the evening of June 17, 1978. The attack occurred in the dining room; contemporary accounts and court records describe a sudden, close-quarters assault in which a man produced a rifle and opened fire. Three co-workers—Dorothy Johnston, 38; John O’Dell, 40; and Danny Linn—were also killed that night, and another person collapsed and died of a heart attack amid the chaos.

Investigators focused on a former cook from the restaurant. After years of pretrial competency proceedings, a Rhode Island Superior Court jury in early September 1987 found Gan Fong Chin guilty on four counts of first-degree murder for the June 17, 1978 killings. Jurors deliberated about seven hours over two days before returning the verdict; the judge later set sentencing for November 5, with Chin facing four mandatory life terms. The restaurant remained a longstanding local establishment tied to the Lee family, and memorials in the community continue to list the four victims together.

Did anyone who worked at or frequented Cathay Terrace around 1978 ever notice tensions or incidents involving staff that might shed light on that night?